Moses always admired music and this influenced him to build on his rap career, which started back in 2008. Through street cyphers and freestyles on hip-hop nights and a number of radio hits like C.Y.N.O, Abaana Bakka, Shine, Cyno MC has captured a crowd of fans to his ecosystem. He is undoubtedly one of the most respected MCs in Uganda.
In 2009 he managed to beat MCs like Big Trill, now of Baboon Forest, Jungle de Man-eater Omusoga, and Kadeford Katanyenje of Luga Luga Squad during the second End of the Weak Kampala MC Challenge. Later he competed with MCs like Rugged Made and M33 Bwongo to become the first ever MC Champion from Uganda.
In 2010 Cyno MC represented Uganda and Africa at large in the End Of The Weak International World Finals in Berlin. At the same time he also appeared and performed at Jam On It and The Splash Festival in Germany.
The turning point
In April 2011, Nanna Schneidermann , a Ph.D. researcher studying Ugandan Music, took Cyno to visit a cardiologist after he confided in her about a pain in the chest that he had felt for the previous three months. The cardiologist confirmed that he needed heart surgery.
Cyno had a condition known as Aortic Regurgitation, defined in Merriam-Webster as the “leakage of blood from the aorta back into the left ventricle during diastole because of failure of an aortic valve to close properly”. With each heartbeat, more blood than usual enters the left ventricle causing the heart strain; serious cases can lead to heart failure.
“I started living my life like it’s about to end,” Cyno MC says. However, the turning point in this crisis came when Nanna Schneidermann convinced him that it was not the end, and encouraged him to get funding for surgery.
He was introduced to Rona, a young German intern at Makerere University Medical School, through DeStreet Art founder, Ayub Kabaati, who helped him raise funds for almost the entire amount needed for the surgery in Germany. “We started reaching out to different artists— but all the hip-hop artists turned us down,” Cyno adds. He started to question the credibility of hip-hop’s “elite” when the most popular stars of Ugandan rap told him they would pray for him. However, End of the Weak also helped arrange charity concerts to fundraise for his surgery.
End of the Weak showed Cyno MC what he calls brotherhood, offering utter honesty and support in the middle of his life crisis. Also Maurice Kirya, who had won the International Award at Radio France that year supported Cyno. Friends, family and the hip-hop community stood behind Cyno in this hard situation.
Cyno MC’s life story can be looked at as a collage of several hip-hop metaphors: hip-hop saved my life, hip-hop turned me away from gang violence, hip-hop gave me a sense of belonging.
Cyno MC was the booth host on One Mic Show, NTV and he is currently working as the host MC at the End of the Weak Uganda MC Challenge.
